It was midnight, my phone started
ringing. I jumped out of slumber, closed the book I was trying unsuccessfully to
read that night and half-walking-half-running, I went over to the phone. The voice
from the other end was husky and got my heart beating fast. I could feel my hands
trebling. “Hello, here is Samba. What can
I do for you” I responded into the mouth piece feeling as if fear was progressively
taking hold of me.
“Sorry to border you
this late sir but I think we need to have a frank conversation ahead of your
engagements tomorrow.” This was getting frightening. I just decided to listen on and
my hands were really shaking now. The voice went on: Failures I must tell you are
unavoidable for even the most talented, driven people on earth. Successful
people are those who learn from their setbacks and develop habits that keep
them from making the same mistakes repeatedly.
By the way, I know you have failed in a
number of ventures in the past and I equally know you are scheduled for an
important job interview tomorrow so I think you need to know this. Don’t worry
about my identity, I will tell you who I am at the end of this conversation so,
just stay tuned…
Having observed you closely for long now, I think your greatest problem
is that you are unable to get along well with people. This is a major problem for you because you have failed to understand
that successful people have a network of people who will go out of
their way to help them. The best collaborators you can ever
have are likable because they care about their reputation and understand the
value of others and so you have to like them in return. The key is to be
genuine, people can easily see past a fake smile and insincere handshake. Start seeing the people around you as a
source of help for you rather than a design to hold you back,
and you'll be more open to positive connections.
Maybe you have not realized it yet but know that most of your past
failures were due to the fact that you
almost always quite when things get tough. I am sure you must have
heard of Thomas Edison, who tested countless materials for the
incandescent lamp before finding the ones that worked. He never gave up. Giving
up at the first sign of failure is actually acting average, perhaps this is why
there are so many average persons. Don’t take this as an insult, it’s just a
fact.
Before I go, I wonder if you have realized that you procrastinate a lot. It’s
so deep in you and so let me tell you, procrastination is
rooted in fear, whether it's a fear of not
meeting your own ambition or being embarrassed. Successful people
don’t give into this fear and make decisions after they have a sufficient amount of information, avoiding the need to
feel like their decision is "perfect".
If you take what I have just said very seriously
and work on it, you are sure to pass the recruitment test tomorrow as well as
the many other ventures you will undertake in the future. This has been Success
on the line.
The line went dead before Samba had
time to say anything. He stood there completely dumbfounded.
No comments:
Post a Comment